Remembering to Thank God: Luke 17:11-19

Tucked away in this healing is a glimpse of what God is like. From all of Jesus’ healing, we can see a picture of God as loving, kind, serving, and helping those in need, but in this passage and in this healing, we get another piece of God’s character showed to us. This truth comes both from what is said in the gospel record and from what is not.

The event begins with ten lepers calling out to Jesus for healing. Jesus tells all ten to go show themselves to the priests, and they all begin running to see the priest. As they were going, they realized that they had been healed, and one turns back to thank Jesus personally. Jesus then makes the comment about how only one returned to give thanks and glory to God, “But the nine—where are they? Was no one found who returned to give glory to God, except this foreigner?” (Verse 17b-18)

Hidden in this healing is another picture of God. With these ten lepers, God was willing to heal them simply because they asked, regardless of whether they came back to thank Jesus. We can easily see this because 90% of them did not return, but the fact that they went and that they realized they were healed, and they would then be declared clean by the priest who would confirm the healing.

Jesus commends the former leper who returned to give thanks, but nowhere do we see that the healing was dependent on returning to give thanks. All ten former lepers had faith because they all chose to obey Jesus and go to the priest.

This brings me to the big thought for this post: God appreciates our thanks when He does things for us. He reaches out and heals us even when we don’t give thanks or recognize that it is Him working.

If you haven’t remembered to thank God today for something He has done (or is currently doing), now is a great moment to say “thank you” to Him.